


Thunderclap From A Clear Sky

by Olorisstra



Series: Naruto fics [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Izuna lives, Original Character(s), Oyoshi does not know what goes through other people's minds, Rated for implications, Unreliable Narrator, except she thinks the reincarnation is stuff she made up as a child, modern girl in Konoha, not sure if stand alone or if there will be more, she just extrapolates from context and actions like we all do
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22640884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra
Summary: He was all Oyoshi had dreamed about, back when she had been a very young child and she had fancied herself to be reborn in this world from another, fantastical, one where many things were different and more hopeful than her life was and where stories of a world like hers had been told in small booklets of drawn pictures.
Series: Naruto fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628698
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

Oyoshi had been a teahouse waitress once.

It had been before her Lord had noticed her, noticed her skills, discovered the way she had learned to bend her energy to her will and enhance her senses and defensive capabilities, to infuse with healing prayers, meant to speed their recovery along, the salves she bought and the bandages she used on her friends when the clients, the ones they weren't supposed to entertain with their open legs but still accepted to be paid by for the act, got rough.

She had thought she was being discreet, only using those tiring skills when she had truly need of it, always careful not to show it whenever shinobi were around because she had heard all the stories about the Clans taking talented people and bringing them into their fold, either by offering them things they had desired or by straight-up buying them, either by buying their debts out or by paying their owners for them.

Many would have looked at it as a ticket to a better way of life but Oyoshi had seen the shinobi come and go since she was a very young child and she had no taste for the life they had chosen, the one that left them dirty and smelly and often sprayed with blood. She had no interest in picking up their weapons or learning how to do anything but defend herself, and she had no interest in being a broodmare for new shinobi either, wasn't sure she had any interest in the acts her friend did for coin, though it could have been because her friends were older and she had just barely reached her thirteenth year of life, according to the owner of the teahouse, Kayashi-san.

She had been very careful, in fact, and had shown extra care and attention in keeping her abilities hidden whenever when the members of the more notorious Clan's came around the red district, keeping her head down and making sure that they knew that she was not for sale, pointing them at the girls who would happily enjoy a client's company for some extra money on the side.

Not careful enough to escape, at fifteen, what she now, twenty-two years old, knew was the unprecedented sensing range of her Lord.

Her Lord had found her and he had come and had sat down with the owner of the tea house and, just like Oyoshi had always feared, he had bought her debt and taken her away, to join his Clan not as a warrior, unlike what Oyoshi had always feared, but as a healer, giving her over in the care of the other healers of the Senju Clan, to be scrubbed clean and given robes befitting of their Clan and taught how to harness her rudimentary skills into proper ones.

He was all Oyoshi had dreamed about, back when she had been a very young child and she had fancied herself to be reborn in this world from another, fantastical, one where many things were different and more hopeful than her life was and where stories of a world like hers had been told in small booklets of drawn pictures.

Tall and proud, often looking cold and aloof but actually very caring for his own people, with hair as pale as a Hatake's and already having taken to wearing a coat with fur expertly stitched upon the collar. She had even dreamed of his red eyes, though that had to have happened after she had first heard about the Uchiha. Somehow, in her youthful fantasies, she had ended up conflating traits from different Clans into one single person, unknowingly dreaming up someone that had looked quite like Senju Tobirama.

He had been young then, younger than her by two years but already acknowledged as a dangerous warrior, one of the youngest to ever take the field, a genius unsurpassed by any and the pride of his father, who had taken one look at Oyoshi and deemed her to be his son's responsibility, despite their differing ages.

Her Lord had looked after her fairly, ever since he had first bought her and taken her to the okonomiyaki stall to share a meal and explain to her what her future was going to be, showing no favouritism for her over any other member of the Clan and keeping a keen eye on her studies and her behaviour and how both reflected on the Clan's standing and on him himself.

He had seen to far more than just providing the means for her to be dressed appropriately for someone whose life he had entrusted to watch over.

He had made sure that she was taught the manners she lacked along with the meaning of the symbols they used to express their language and the art of counting and budgeting. She had been taught deportment while she was made to repeat the history of the Clan, reciting their allies and enemies and the treaties between them and other Clans as she walked about in her new clothes or made tea or eat food under the judging eyes of Mariko-san.

He had personally trained her to defend herself from enemy attack and retreat to safety, stating that she did not have a soul of a killer and that her medical knowledge from her healer studies would enable her to end a life, should she ever be forced into doing anything more than incapacitating her enemies.

She owed everything to her Lord and her loyalty was to him and him alone.

Not to his Clan and most certainly not to his older brother, whose behaviour she accepted because her Lord accepted it. She bowed to Hashirama-same as the older brother of her Lord, someone to whose whims she bent because he was everything in her Lord's world.

Once, years ago, she had heard some of the younger ninjas, chatting from where they were confined in their beds until they could be seen by a healer and thinking her distracted by the restocking work she was doing, wondering what would her Lord do should his brother tell her to do something her Lord disapproved of. Such speculation had caused her to silently scoff, not because she thought her Lord would intervene on her behalf, she knew he only would if he thought the request to be outrageous in a way that was offensive to his own sensibilities, but because the whole situation was constructed upon the idea that she would allow her Lord and his brother to come to quarrel over her head, rather than bending of her own will and ensuring her Lord would never find out, should any request be unpalatable to her.

She'd never do anything that could be even remotely misconstrued as coming between her Lord and his brother, for she would never consciously or willingly put her Lord in any situation where he was at anything less than a complete advantage and secure in his own position.

It was why, when Hashirama-sama decided he wanted the healers brought along to the field of battle to heal not only their Clan members and their allies but also any survivors on the battlefield, regardless of allegiance, as a show of his positive will and as one of his many attempts to court peace with the Uchiha Clan, she had volunteered, assuring her Lord that it was her own choice and that she trusted in his teachings to have sharpened her ability to keep herself hidden from sight and safe until her talents were needed just as much as he had sharpened his kunai.

She had not called herself a tool, had never called herself one since witnessing his reaction the first time she had done so when she was still fourteen and him twelve, but she had perhaps been a bit careless in her comparison, as he had reacted almost as if she had and had then proceeded to have tea brought to them as he engaged her in a talk that she was reasonably sure had been meant to reassure her of her importance to the Clan and of his willingness to refuse permission for her to come should she be doing so only to serve him, rather than out of personal preference.

Oyoshi's personal preference being to serve him and to spare him from any tension between him and his brother, she had done her best to reassure him without lying, weaving her words and arguments with all the care she had forgotten to use with her first metaphor.

She had been skilled enough at it to ensure her Lord's peace of mind and to secure his permission to come along, if with strict orders to keep herself hidden until and unless her talent as a healer was needed.

It was because of that victory alone that she had happened to be present the day her Lord had triumphed over his self-sworn rival Uchiha Izuna, delivering a blow that, under most circumstances, would have been lethal to the other man.

Had Oyoshi not been on the field, Uchiha Izuna would have died, but she was on the field and she had overheard far too many discussions between the brothers not to be aware of Hashirama-sama's plans for peace with the Uchiha, had been taught too much about the Senju's rival clan and their weaknesses not to know how badly such a death would be taken, had heard far too much about the Uchiha's leader and his closeness to his brother not to fear what fallout would happen.

The stories she had made up as a child had featured plenty of the infamous Uchiha madness, of their lust for blood and the darkness that lurked inside of them, all based upon the gossip and chatter of the red lights district she had grown up into, and she had remembered them as she had watched Uchiha Izuna fall, heard Uchiha Madara's scream, noticed the hate and despair on Hashirama-sama's face as he turned to see what tragedy his brother, her Lord, had wrought onto the battlefield.

Oyoshi had moved without thinking, shedding her disguises and throwing herself on her knees next to the brother of the Uchiha Clan Head, hard enough that they stung with what had to be skin scraped raw, channelling her chakra into her hands and putting them upon his chest as she closed her eyes and dived with all of her senses into his body, seeking to staunch the flow of blood and stem the damage her Lord had inflicted upon his mortal enemy, trusting her Lord to defend her from any enemy attack.

She did not know how much time went by as she frantically worked to repair all that had been cut and all that had ruptured after being cut into the body under her hands, refusing to let that life slip away from her care, thankful for her Lord's skill and the sharpness of his sword for having made her work easier, leaving clean cuts for her to reconnect and heal, giving her the chance she needed to save the life of the brother of the Uchiha Clan's Head, to keep her Lord from damaging his relationship with his brother beyond repair.

She knew that she was allowed to do her work, left to repair what her Lord had destroyed with such surgical precision that, had she not known him and his attacks as well as she did, it would have been impossible for any non-Senju healer to manage to put it back to rights in time to save her patient's life. She knew as much and she knew that when she let her hands slid away from the cloth and skin under them and opened her eyes, there were members of both Clans clustered around her and her patient, weapons unsheathed and tension running through the circle so thick that she fancied she could smell fire sparks in the air.

“He will live.” She said, her world greying at the edges, unerringly turning to her Lord and addressing her words to him. “He will recover and he will be able to seek the battlefield again.”

It was a confession, one she was sure only her Lord would hear and understand. She could have done less, she could have saved his enemy's life and left him crippled for life, she could have saved his enemy's life and destroyed his chances of ever reproducing, she could have let his enemy die and lie that she had not been able to save him, she could have hastened his enemy's demise and made it quicker and painless and lie that she had not been able to save him but she had not.

He knew that she could have and she wasn't going to deny it, she wasn't going to deny that she had chosen to restore him to as close as to full health as she was able to. She wasn't going to ask for his forgiveness either, wasn't going to ask him to keep her at his side after she looked to have betrayed him so utterly and egregiously, wasn't going to beg to be allowed to stay when her actions might demand he ought to cast her out. That wasn't why she was confessing.

She was confessing because he was her Lord and he was owed her fealty and her honesty, her loyalty and her soul and heart. She was confessing because, while he was going to know, either way, she wanted him to hear it from her and know it to be true.

Oyoshi did not close her eyes, looking up at her Lord and imprinting his impassive face into her memory, watching the way he watched her and finding herself unable to read his expression, as often happened, until the greying world turned dark and her body gave in to the exhaustion, darkness bearing her away.


	2. Chapter 2

Oyoshi woke up warm, wrapped in something soft and held in familiar, strong arms.

Riyūki-san had to be sitting down, given the way he was holding her with her back against his chest, his right arm wrapped around her shoulders as his left hand rested over her solar plexus, chakra circling from his palm down inside the energy points that rested there, skilfully keeping the chakra from touching the closing or joy gate. It was not the most comfortable of positions but it meant that they were somewhere where Riyūki-san felt safe enough to both focus on replenishing her own chakra and to expend his own in such a way.

That he was doing so did not surprise her.

Her head was foggy, her hearing muffled, her eyelids heavy and her limbs weighed down by the old, familiar haze of chakra exhaustion. It meant she had overreached again, ran her chakra low enough that her body had forced her to pass out, to keep her from expending the last of her strength. To keep her from accidentally killing herself by either giving too much of it away or burning through it.

It was an old foe of a sensation by now, something she had regularly struggled both with and against in her everlasting, self-given mission to keep increasing the size of her chakra pool. She had been told once and once again, by many members of the Clan, that her chakra pool had been of a respectable medium size since the beginning and that she didn't have to struggle to increase it, especially now that her growing years were done and the task was more difficult than it had been in the beginning, but her Lord had never spoken a word against it, had never even suggested she might slow down or stop her fight.

He had provided her with guidance and teachers and he had always checked on her progress regularly, either finding or inventing new exercises for her to do as well as allowing her to participate in his experiments with seals meant to measure the amount of chakra either in possession or expended by an individual and allowing her further use of them even once the experiments were done. He was a generous Lord, only strict when she needed him to be.

He was going to frown and assign her stricter, supervised chakra gauging exercises again, her Lord, possibly exchange more letters with the Lady Uzumaki on the subject of measuring seals with a visible component. He was certainly going to bring in Shimizu-san once more to do the supervising and re-teaching, once Riyūki-san deemed her ready to be released from his care.

“Stop thinking.” The healer in question ordered, his deep voice stern in delivering the instruction. “You need to rest more.”

The _and I will put you back to sleep myself if I do not think you are resting in a way worthy of a Nara_ was unsaid but present in the heavy undertones of his voice.

Riyūki-san thought the Nara were inspirational subjects if one was taking inspiration on ways to enjoy life and relax in between missions. He would have married into their Clan hadn't he been born a Senju, Oyoshi knew. He had told her as much, more than once, usually when wishing his patients, her especially, to be more cooperative and less, as he had put it, bothersome.

“I will try.” She promised, without opening her eyes, trying to relax and shifting her focus from her own thoughts to the feeling of the gentle chakra leaking from Riyūki-san's rough palm into her core, spreading through her pathways like water sliding through irrigation canals, helping relieve the drought she had brought onto herself.

She could feel someone else talk nearby, asking something in an urgent tone and then squawking something else as the voice moved away from them, but her hearing was always the slowest to come back and she had _just_ given her word to Riyūki-san that she would attempt to achieve further rest, so she didn't let it bother her. She would be coaxed back if it was something she ought to be part of.

The flow of healing chakra joining with her own and then dispersing in it, coaxing it to come back, was almost hypnotic and it helped lull her into a weightless state, disconnected from the outside world and quite similar to her most successful attempts at meditation. It left her floating, the world soft and hazy, lazy rivers of energy running through and under her, keeping her suspended into nothingness, time slipping away from her until it mattered none at all and all was quiet and gentle.

She did not know how much she was allowed to rest but her reserves had filled completely up and she was half of the way back to having her pool refilled when her Lord's chakra drew her attention, gentle as it always was when he was dealing with her. Not even in the worst of his tempers had his chakra ever lashed out at her and she couldn't say the same for anyone else.

He had fascinating chakra, her Lord, spiky from it's lighting nature but grounded out by the earth one, warm because of his fire nature and humid from the water one, fresh and airy from the wind element and more balanced than any other she had met, due to his proficiency with both yin and yang nature. It was one of a kind, stronger in each element whenever he was drawing more strongly on one of them but never losing the undertones brought by all the others.

It was why it was always her Lord who was called to bring her out of her meditation trances or from the healing trances Riyūki-san occasionally helped her slide into. His chakra had the easiest time catching her attention and drawing her out of her inner world and back into the outer one, leading her down the path she needed to follow to leave behind the soft space in her mind she had decided to call her 'subspace'.

“Tobirama-dono.” She whispered, blinking her eyelids slowly to chase the sleep from them and then more rapidly when she saw his face, to keep the tears that threatened to spill at bay as grief bloomed in her heart at the thought that this might be the last time that he drew her forward so, if the punishment meted out on her was to be the harshest one.

She was happy to see him regardless, helplessly smiling up at him because how could she do anything but smile when he looked at her with such intensity, putting so much of his attention on her?

Even if this was the last she was to see of him, even if he exiled her for having betrayed him as she had, she was always going to be happy to see him. She would never stop to be happy to be allowed in the presence of her Lord, no matter how short or fleeting the moment. She had been blessed with his regard for so long and yet it felt new and humbling every time she happened to draw it upon herself.

“Oyoshi.” He greeted her, his tone calm but his voice measured and inflexions perfect in the crisp way that he always displayed when politics were afoot and he felt it necessary to weight each and every word that came out of his mouth before he spoke them, wary of giving anyone around them a chance to try exploiting his words as much as his actions. “Riyūki is going to stop feeding you chakra as soon as I stop speaking, ready yourself.”

She nodded, looking at him and taking in the details of his face anew, memorizing the lines of his tattoos for the hundredth time and watching the clinical, detached way his red eyes took her condition in as she kept her body relaxed, feeling the ebb of the familiar but extraneous energy as Riyūki-san's chakra retreated from her own, disengaging slowly.

Her Lord was still dressed in his battle gear, the happuri still firmly in place, protecting his forehead and cheeks, some blood dotting the fur over his shoulders and his armor but none on his face, but he didn't look as if he was fresh from a fight, his breathing pattern normal rather than perfectly controlled or fast in coming and his pupils an even and healthy size rather than enlarged from the excitement of the fight.

“It is done,” Riyūki-san informed her Lord, who nodded and took her hands into his own, squeezing them once as Riyūki-san's arms let her go, giving her enough warning to brace herself as he drew her up with him, bringing her up to stand on her own feet, steadying her with ease and practice as he looked down at her, breaking eye contact to check all of her over, the minute relaxing of his jaw letting her know he was satisfied with the results of his examination.

“Thank you, Riyūki-san.” Oyoshi murmured, taking note of the healer's grumbling answer but not really listening to it, unable to draw her attention away from her Lord, letting her fingers curl gently around his hands, prolonging the contact by any little amount she could get, desperate to wring every last second she was still to have with him of as much sensation as meaning as she could achieve to hoard.

For just this once, she was going to allow herself to be greedy in her interactions with him. A whole life without him was stretching out ahead of her and she already knew, as she had always known since her second month in his care, that it was going a barren and lonely haze of a life if their path ever came to a fork and, from one, was made into two again.

“My reserves are fully restocked, Tobirama-dono, and my chakra is at half of its full capacity.” She murmured. She knew he could not be ignorant of it, not her Lord with his unprecedented sensing capacity, but she was still his charge until he decreed differently, and he was still her Lord, was always going to be her Lord to her, and he was due a report, now that the healer he had assigned to her had agreed to release her back into her Lord's custody.

“Very well.” Was all her Lord said, giving her a brisk nod and shifting from observing to commanding, straightening up just the slightest amount and putting a proprietary hand on her shoulder, like he hadn't had to do since they last crossed path with the Inuzuka.

When he spoke again, his voice was dripping with distaste and disapproval, something dark threaded through it that spoke of a desire for a far more violent resolution than he was being allowed to mete out at the moment, though none of it was aimed at her, not yet at the very least.

It was enough to light a spark of hope in Oyoshi's heart, hope that she would be allowed to stay, that he had understood why she had done what she'd done and decided to forgive her for it, regardless of what others might have demanded. It was warm and soft and filled with gratitude and it died a quick death at his next words.

“Come with me, the Uchiha are getting noisier about seeing you.” He commanded and Oyoshi inclined her head in acquiescence and followed his lead, letting him guide her steps as he took her away from Riyūki-san and through the Senju travel camp they were in, towards the opposite end of it, where many voices were indeed raised up, some in tones far more demanding than the others.

The reprieve her Lord had so generously granted her, going as far as allocating Clan resources to take care of her despite her own actions, was over.

The time had come to own up to her actions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the people who liked, reviewed and bookmarked this.
> 
> Thank you very much, you helped my inspiration keep going at least as far as a second chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

Her Lord walked by her side, his hand resting still on her should, as they walked through the Senju travel camp, their steps steady on the earth Ryūnosuke-san had flattened for them to pitch their tents on, the nature of the camp too transient for Hashirama-sama to bother with his own buildings. Ryūnosuke-san himself was sitting by one of the campfires, easily noticeable because of his height even while sitting, though he stood when Fusatane-san elbowed him and pointed her out to him, very uncouthly.

They weren't the only ones to stand.

Every single Senju present did, their eyes and attention riveted upon Tobirama-dono and her as they made their way towards where the yelling was happening, somewhere, she now realized, outside the boundaries of the Senju travel camp, though not as far as the other camp she was able to see on the other side of the plain their warriors had fought on during the previous battle.

She could hear her move after they walked by too, their footsteps light but not as quiet as they would have been in a battle, as they formed themselves in ranks behind her and her Lord, following along to witness the confrontation to come and whatever punishment her Lord decided her actions against him warranted.

Oyoshi did not begrudge anyone for coming and would have begrudged anyone who didn't. Her actions had been as public as they could have been and the punishment had to be proportionate to the crime, witnessed by just as many as had witnessed the original action.

She had healed one of the two strongest shinobi of the Clan they were feuding against, she had healed him to the fullest extent of her abilities and had not taken advantage of the opening that could have given her, the way a proper ninja of the Clan should have had. A man who wanted the head of her Lord and she had not only allowed him to live but had healed him to the point where he would thrive and be able to come back and try again if he so wished.

The more she thought about it, the sicker she felt at her stomach, her gag reflex trying to kick in and force her to reject whatever remnants of food and whatever bile was present in her stomach to come out. Had she been alone or in possession of any modicum of privacy, she would have given in to the urge and hurried to the nearest tree to empty her traitorous belly of any trace of the food she had only received thanks to the Clan she had so heinously betrayed.

Her reasons why didn't matter at all, her motivations even less than that. Only her actions and the consequences of them did count and she wasn't going to compound them by behaving like an ill-bred wretch, bringing even more shame to her Lord than she already had.

She forced her body to relax and stood tall in the armour she only owned at her Lord's generosity, wearing the clothes her Lord had picked out for her, bearing the Senju colours and symbol still as she walked out of the encampment, possibly never to return to it, without giving a single look back, head held high but eyes downcast in deference to her betters, who were ~~yelling about~~ discussing her future ahead of her, on the freshly overturned earth of the battlefield.

Uchiha Madara was standing there, his complexion ruddy with rage as he snarled and snapped, in a fit of temper that she would have done a lot of things to steer clear from, yelling demands to see _your Senju healer_ at her Lord's brother, something that made her Lord stiffen with almost perfectly concealed outrage, the tightening of his fingers on her shoulder the only give away to his temper.

It wasn't a grip tight enough to hurt, not that Oyoshi would have mentioned it if it had been, and she wished for a reason to grip something herself, instead of having to keep her hands at her side, flat and relaxed. The gall of the _Uchiha_ to treat the Head of the Senju as if he was an errand messenger that wasn't acting fast enough on his retainer's orders. It made Oyoshi's stomach roil for a completely different reason, to witness the way Hashirama-sama played along with the Uchiha's temper, cowering like a child in front of an adult with the power to scare them, whining for more time as he would have had with Tameatsu-san to try and postpone a check-up.

She could feel her heart beating faster even through the dull roar in her ears, or perhaps more so because of it, as she struggled to keep her expression even and keep the judgement she had for both of them and the shame she felt at the sight of the Senju Clan head abasing himself so to herself and herself alone.

“Oyoshi-chan!” Hashirama-sama greeted her, the moment he noticed her, beaming at her in joy and triumph and hastening towards her and Tobirama-dono and drawing the Uchiha attention to her, the man's head whipping around to stare at her with spinning red eyes that would have scared her, hadn't she been so furious she was surprised to be able to see straight still. “Come, come! Madara wants to meet the woman who saved his brother's life!”

“A life that wouldn't have been in danger hadn't it been for your brother!” Uchiha Madara snapped, snarling in a way that made it sound as if the argument had already been raised time and time again and still coming off, to her ears, as childish.

What had he expected, for Tobirama-dono to go into battle and give it less than his all? For his brother's chosen and searched-for opponent to allow a deadly victory without fighting back? For the Senju to be a fangless challenge, just because Hashirama-sama wasn't all that willing to impale branches through the man's own throat?

“Hashirama-sama.” She said, only, inclining her head and stepping forward, her Lord's fingers on her shoulder tightening further as she took the step.

She'd have stopped, her muscles already going lax, but his hand let her go and then Hashirama-sama was there, taking her hands in his own, uninvited and unwanted but too powerful and high ranked for her to refuse him the closeness he wanted, and leading her away from his Clan and brother and towards the one who would have seen them all burned to death without breaking a sweat if he'd had the chance.

Madara, Oyoshi couldn't help but notice, looked even taller up close, the baggy Uchiha clothing covering the armour she had no doubt he was wearing, his famed _gunbai_ held tight in his hand. He was an imposing man, with large shoulders and what looked, even through the layers of clothing, like strong arms made stronger by his favourite weapon and the strength it demanded to be wielded. He had no visible scars on his face and his hair was as long as they had looked the few times she had managed to catch a glimpse of him in previous battles she had provided medical assistance after, a taunt to his enemies to just go and try to take advantage of them.

She should have looked downward, for he was a Clan Head and a Lord in his own right and he was owed respect for it, even as the head of the Clan the Senju were feuding with. She should have avoided looking into the Uchiha famed Sharingan, rumoured to be able to predict any movement before it could be made and ensnare anyone short of a Yamanaka or a Hyūga in its genjutsu, too.

She did neither, meeting his stare head-on.

Somewhere, in the back of her head, she had the firm surety that for all that he was one of the four deadliest warriors in the Land, she still had the protection of two of the other ones and had saved the life of the third, the life of his precious younger brother but that was not why she did it. She stood tall, with her head straight and looked Uchiha Madara straight in the eye because she was Senju Oyoshi, ward of Senju Tobirama and it was going to take more than a loudly yelling, tantrum-throwing enemy to cow her into submission.

“Thank you, Hashirama-sama, for gifting me with the time to recover from my exhaustion as much as I was allowed to.” She said, peripherally aware of the shapes of the Uchiha ninja walking out of their own travel camp to come witness the meeting but never taking her eyes off the Uchiha Clan leader in front of her, throwing into his face that Hashirama-sama had been stalling for her own good when the Uchiha would have had her dragged out in front of him before she could even recover after exhausting herself healing Uchiha Madara's own younger brother.

“I apologize for my delay in presenting myself to this meeting and for the state I am coming to you in.” She added, with as much politeness as she could muster, though she could herself hear that there was a cutting edge to her words, one that Hashirama-sama had never had reason before to hear coming out of her own mouth, displeased now that she had been given no time to either change herself or even check her own appearance before Tobirama-dono had to escort her here, to satisfy the demands of the man she was standing in front of. “I only just woke up.”

She'd be damned, before she would let anyone, but especially any Uchiha rank and position in their Clan be damned, behave as Uchiha Madara had towards the Senju Clan Head, her own Clan Head, and walk away with the impression that such behaviour would somehow endear them to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the most important tag is that of the unreliable narrator.
> 
> Oyoshi's own biases and belief system (which are not mine) come into play here and the way she sees things unfolding is not necessarily as bad or as dire as she sees them. I hope it came through before this that she doesn't really like how Hashirama behaves before, in chapter 1, and we can see how that influences her read of the situation in her own mind and, while she knows nothing about the river thing because a) it happened before she joined the Clan and b) it is not something that was spread about in the Clan or talked about at all, she has a bias against the Uchiha that is born out of the memories she had of the Naruto manga that she has now conflated with 'gossip I heard about growing up' as well as from being assimilated in the Senju and having been desperate to fit in.
> 
> On the other hand, Madara can easily come off as rude and he is a powerful and prideful man and neither he nor Hashirama behaves with each other in what most people would see as 'appropriate'. Oyoshi has spent her whole life clinging to social mores and propriety rules to help define herself in her role as Tobirama's ward of sorts and I consider Tobirama to be, while well-intentioned, hard to read and someone who often comes off as standoffish and more formal than either his brother or Madara (on top of being a powerful and prideful man himself) and that's who she's always wanted to impress and keep on impressing so that's left his own mark on the way she thinks of things.
> 
> She won't necessarily stay this way, people change opinions and behaviours their whole lives, but that's how things stand in this specific moment.
> 
> There are also a few more canon divergences from the manga than just Izuna surviving at play here but those will come up later so I won't spoil them here.
> 
> I apologize for not writing longer chapters but inspiration comes in fits and bursts and I take advantage of it when I can. I cannot set up a publication schedule but I do hope to get the next chapter out sometime soon-ish, though I make no promises as I won't tell any lies.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter and have a lovely day.


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